Students can find their name and are provided with texts appropriate to their reading level.

Online running records for teachers

Students can listen to books while the text being read is highlighted

Students can record themselves reading a book

Can access through free apps for iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire

Evaluation:

Age appropriateness: Raz-Kids is very age appropriate for students ranging from kindergarten to 5th grade. Not only is it age appropriate, but it is also appropriate for different kinds of reading levels since the books on this site are leveled starting from A-Z. Every child will be given books that are appropriate for their age and reading level based on their reading skills and can work their way up a level through practice and scoring high on the post-reading eQuizzes.

Feedback provided: Students and teachers are granted instant feedback from Raz-Kids. Directly after students take an eQuiz, they are told their score (ie. 10/10 correct) and they are also told if they have moved up a level. Teachers are also given feedback because Raz-Kids provides an organized tab where the teacher can view every student’s progress, scores, and reading levels. This allows the teacher to monitor and assess his or her students based on their online reading and quiz scores.

Strengths:

Easily accessible through a variety of different devices

All of the texts are leveled so the teacher does not have to level them his or herself

Hundreds of ebooks provided

Tools for students to use (ie. sticky notes to mark down unknown words, recording reading, etc.) while they are reading

High cost, teacher might have to pay out of pocket if school does not provide the funding for it

Not all students may have access to a device whether it be at home or in school since it is an online tool

Application Within Education:

Say for instance you are a new teacher who does not have a stocked bookshelf of age appropriate books for your student. Finding the readability level of each book is tedious and time consuming, but using Raz-Kids can eliminate all of these issues. Although the teacher (or school) must pay a yearly fee, Raz-Kids provides hundreds of age appropriate books that are easily accessible to students through popular devices. Each book is leveled A-Z so the teacher would not have to worry about doing that on their own time. This ebook software saves teachers time and money (buying hundreds of books will most likely cost more than the annual fee) and engages his or her students.

If students are struggling with fluency because they are not exposed to fluent readers enough during school or at home, Raz-Kids could serve as their model. Since this

Here a student is listening to the text being read by a fluent reader.

software provides the option of having a book read aloud to a child by a fluent reader, the student could see how fluency works and acquire it on his or her own through recording themselves. Students are able to follow along with the voice that is reading the text through the highlighted text feature and they can experience a perfect model of what a fluent reader sounds like if they are not being exposed to fluency at home or in school as much as they should.